It
took Soi Fong twenty years after Yoruichi-sama's departure to stop
looking over her shoulder for her mistress. Normal bodyguards would
have been able to look in front at the person they were following,
but Yoruichi-sama was always irritating that way. (And wasn't that
part of her charm?) She was where she
wanted to be, and it was Soi Fong's job to find her and catch up.

Far too often, she was behind Soi Fong, and smiling. She
would lean over Soi Fong's shoulder, and prop her folded arms on Soi
Fong in the most casual and trusting way, and whisper something in
Soi Fong's ear.

After fifty years, Soi Fong began to grow used
to Yoruichi-sama's absence. Nobody else leaned on her like that.
(Nobody would dare.) Even the older captains, whether they were
avuncular or cheerfully lecherous or simply strange, didn't . . .
touch her. She didn't touch people. (Suzumebachi didn't count.)

She
liked to think, occasionally, that she was doing a good job.

When
the queen is gone,
Suzumebachi would hum in her sleep, then
there must be a new queen.

There were areas of thought which Soi Fong didn't touch. They
covered topics such as Walking
Out On One's Responsibilities,
Walking
Out On One's Division,
and Walking
Out On One's Covert Operations Group.
She didn't think about them at all.

And she never, never
thought about Walking
Out On The People Who Love You,
because some concepts were simply too painful even to formulate.

She
got on with things and took command and became stronger, and for
every time she might have thought, Yoruichi-sama
would have approved,
she would counter it with she
deserted
and let it lie there, before the words left
me
or betrayed
me
could so much as enter her mind.

Ultimately, she knew that she
could
walk out on the Division herself, and go to find Yoruichi-sama (for
surely Yoruichi-sama could not hide forever), and fill that part of
her duty which said she was Yoruichi-sama's bodyguard and servant for
life. Or maybe kill Yoruichi-sama for leaving her. She wasn't quite
sure.

But some part of her didn't want to leave her duty.

It
would have disappointed Yoruichi-sama.

And she didn't want to
do that.

Soi Fong never did manage to stop giving a scornful,
disdainful, frustrated little sniff when someone nearby did something
stupid.

Even when it was Yoruichi-sama.

(And even,
sometimes, when it was Soi Fong herself.)

---

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